Rothko Chapel executive director David Leslie snarks that “[Hurricane] Beryl came in like a barrel.” The estimated 10 to 14 inches of rain that drenched Houston in June and July 2024 caused between $2.5–$4.5 billion worth of damages—some of that, unfortunately, to the 54-year-old nondenominational gathering place. A drain clogged on the east side of the building, leading to water leaking down the walls and soaking the triptych to the east and another painting on the southeast corner. All told, four out of the chapel’s 14 total paintings needed repairs, along with the structure itself.

After weeks being shuttered following the hurricane, the Rothko Chapel officially announced in August that it was closed indefinitely for restoration to clean up the water, fix the paintings, and address the building’s weak points. It reopened to the public again on December 17, though with the east side’s triptych still off-site at an undisclosed location as it undergoes repairs. The painting on the southeast wall has since been restored and placed back where it belongs. Over the five months that Rothko Chapel shuttered its doors, the team worked tirelessly to ensure that the globally beloved space received all the care and attention owed to its legacy.

“Upon the discovery of the water damage on the paintings, we brought in support from the Menil conservation team. We had a team that came in to take the paintings off the wall, to get them horizontal, to get them dried out, to really get them stabilized,” Leslie says. “And then from that point on, it was a series of different conservators looking at the damage, looking at what would be the protocol to further stabilize the paintings, to be able then to be moved off campus to the appropriate conservation labs.”

The painting on the southeast was restored right there at the chapel itself. Leslie notes that the exact processes used to reverse the damages is proprietary, but the decision to treat a painting on- or off-site involves an extensive risk assessment process. A painting can’t be moved off-site unless it’s likely to survive being removed from the wall, dried out, covered, and transported. Whitten & Proctor Fine Art Conservation and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston lent a hand to the Rothko Chapel and the Menil Collection to help them determine the safest course of action for each damaged work.

Because the removed paintings are still in the earliest stages of restoration, there’s no solid time frame for when visitors can see them back in their proper place. There’s currently a large blank spot on the east wall, but it doesn’t diminish the powerful silence and presence inside the chapel. Light still streams in from the skylight; on cloudy, rainy days the gray adds a surreal dimension to explorations of Mark Rothko’s dark canvases.

The painter and the de Menil family who commissioned the chapel had clear visions of what they wanted the space to be. The Rothko Chapel is also on the National Register of Historic Places, which dictates what can and can’t be done to a landmark. Hurricane Beryl didn't open up brand-new chances for the chapel to experiment with some daring new aesthetics. Leslie and his team both needed and wanted to keep things the same as they ever were.

“We call it restoration, not renovation. There was that sense of restoring the chapel as much as possible to the original artistic and architectural design aspirations that, over time, changed because of necessary repairs and things of that nature,” he says.

It wasn’t just fellow arts organizations who stepped up to support restoration efforts, either. Donations poured in from all over the world, even small towns that Leslie and his team had never even heard of before. From increments as low as $5 to major institutional grants from the likes of the Henry Luce Foundation and Mellon Foundation, the global community showed its solidarity with the Rothko Chapel during a dark period in its history.

“We know, but we were reminded…in a new way of what the chapel means to people. And some who have never even been in the chapel, they just understand the importance of the place,” Leslie says. “And then there are also those who understand the impact of the loss of artwork, damage to artwork. It’s not just a thing, but there’s something existential to art.”

These gifts also made it possible for the Rothko Chapel to continue its schedule of free and low-cost programming off-site. Rice University, Jung Center, and MFAH were among the venues that hosted events previously intended for the chapel’s campus. Regular programming resumes at the space on January 15, honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. The de Menils always intended for the Rothko Chapel to serve as a community gathering place, sparking conversations about faith, culture, and social justice. Decades of nurturing connections between people of different backgrounds and perspectives helped create an environment eager and willing to give back when the chips were down.

However, to keep the Rothko Chapel and other arts organizations better protected from disasters, Leslie brings up one critical issue that needs addressing: climate change. Extreme weather events like Beryl test the limits of buildings whose architects may not have realized their works would ever have to face such severe winds, rains, and floods. The water that leaked onto the east walls sprang from a vulnerability too small to see with the naked eye, something that can’t exactly be discovered during routine safety inspections, Leslie says. It also could’ve been the result of invisible damages compounding over time as more and more weather events occurred.

“Beryl happened. It wasn’t a few months before when the derecho happened, which wasn’t a few months before when the drought happened, which wasn’t a few months to a year before the freeze happened. And you keep going down the list,” Leslie says. “All of your stress points are getting stressed…How do you keep up with that?”

Part of the Rothko Chapel’s restoration entailed measures to counteract the ravages of increasingly severe weather. They’ve since moved their energy systems above ground to avoid disruptions from flooding. They’ve purchased flood gates to place inside the chapel’s doors. They’ve conducted a few small stress tests as well, to note weak points. Leslie believes that frequent conversations about the impact of climate change on the arts need to keep occurring alongside those looking at its broader harm.

“One thing that we’re really, really committed to is to do the research and then share our learnings about what vulnerabilities smaller arts and culture organizations are facing in the face of climate change,” he says. “Many like us and many others, we don’t have big staff. We don’t have big budgets to be able to constantly monitor [problems]… We’re really committed to learning this, and we’ve been on that path.”